IMPACT! Wrestling Review - July 12, 2018

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The OGz def. Local Athletes

Homicide and Hernandez are calling themselves the "OGz" (the originals) of LAX, or just The OGz for short, with King serving as their mouthpiece. As I mentioned last week, I am super stoked Homicide and Hernandez are back together because they were such a fun tandem back in the day in TNA, and IMPACT's tag team division could really use them right now. King's post-match promo was good and set up LAX vs. The OGz in a 5150 Street Fight for the Impact Tag Team Championship at Slammiversary.

Allie def. Shotzi Blackheart

I liked that we got to hear from Blackheart before the bout and we got to see some highlights of her time in the RISE promotion. It isn't often IMPACT does stuff like that, so I appreciated it because it helped me get familiar with her. She had an impressive performance here against the former Impact Knockouts Champion and it was a nice match on the whole with Allie building momentum ahead of Slammiversary. She was also attacked by Tessa Blanchard afterward, officially kicking off that feud in the process.

Impact World Champion Austin Aries Attacked DeAngelo Williams

You knew exactly where this was going as soon as they said Moose was away training, but that didn't take away from it for me whatsoever. Rather, this was a solid segment that effectively got more heat on Aries and made the feud between Aries and Moose more personal than it already was. Plus, Williams got much more physical than I thought he would, so props for him for that. The buildup to the Slammiversary main event has been well done so far and I find myself looking forward to the match.

Eli Drake def. Grado

Drake has kind of been in limbo since the dissolution of his alliance with Scott Steiner a while ago, so here's hoping he finds direction soon. It is slightly weird that he recently signed a long-term contract with the company yet he isn't a part of the Slammiversary card as of now. In the meantime, I'm fine with him picking up small wins like this to get back on track, even if the match itself wasn't too memorable.

oVe def. Rich Swann, Fenix and Pentagon Jr.

Sami Callihan noted on Twitter earlier today that this was "one of the craziest six-man tag team matches in IMPACT history," and honestly, after watching it, he might not be far off. This was all action from bell to bell and a ton of fun with the audience electric for everything they did. These six stars worked wonderfully together and deserve credit for putting forth such a strong effort and pulling off some of the insane spots that they did. This was the perfect preview of what to expect from them in their respective Slammiversary matches.

Overall Show

There was also an angle with Madison Rayne's pre-taped sit-down interview being interrupted by Su Yung and that leading to Yung seemingly kidnapping Rayne, so there was that, too. Anyway, this was a very enjoyable edition of IMPACT! Wrestling on the whole with plenty of smart build for Slammiversary and a must-see main event. I'm excited to see how Slammiversary will be and how IMPACT plans to blow off several of their storylines. It should be an above-average event based off what's on tap and how entertaining the product has been by and large in recent months.